File this one under How did Google not have a test for this? Got a birthday or anniversary in December? Sorry - Android 4.2 doesn't know what December is. Well, rather the People/Contacts app that comes stock and is part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) doesn't. Wait... what?

We couldn't believe it either, but it's true. Google forgot to include December. As in, there are 11 months in a year. January after November. Christmas is ruined. Santa is dead. At least we'll save money on buying presents, right?

We verified this on a Nexus 7 and a Nexus 10 running 4.2. Compare the screenshots of the People app in Android 4.2 (left) with Android 4.1 (right) or any other previous version of Android:

Left: Android 4.2; Right: Android 4.1

The issue was already reported to the Android bug tracker (bug #39692), but has not been acknowledged by the Android team at the time of this writing yet. I'm expecting that to change very shortly.

Update 11/20/12 12:01pm: Google says the bug will be fixed soon just to calm everyone down (we had no doubt they would remedy it, of course):

We discovered a bug in the Android 4.2 update, which makes it impossible to enter December events in optional fields of the People app (this bug did not affect Calendar). Rest assured, this will be fixed soon so that those of you with December birthdays and anniversaries won't be forgotten by your friends and family.

After digging through the AOSP source, I think the bug can be likely found in one of these commits, probably in the packages/apps/Contacts/src/com/android/contacts/datepicker/DatePicker.java file - if you spot it, definitely drop a note in the comments. I think it has to do with adjusting for indexes that start with 0 - "off by 1" bugs are quite common.

My guess is we won't have to wait for Android 4.2.1 for too long now - leaving a bug like that live would make the North Pole population very-very unhappy. And we don't want that, do we? After all, they're the ones buying a whole lot of Nexuses this holiday season.

Artem is a die-hard Android fan, passionate tech blogger, obsessive-compulsive editor, bug hunting programmer, and the founder of Android Police.
Most of the time, you will find Artem either hacking away at code or thinking of the next 15 blog posts.

Comments

That would've been an awesome Easter Egg, including all days until December 21.

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

They should have skipped January then.

http://twitter.com/andrewf Andrew

and every date since )

Damon Hart

#2012

James Jun

Man, what is with 4.2?!

joser116

Am I the only one that prefers the Android 4.1 date picker over 4.2? It's just way too small. They should have kept it big like in 4.1

http://www.androidpolice.com/author/ron-amadeo/ Ron Amadeo

What? It's the same size. That's just a Nexus 7 vs A phone.

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Different devices, brah.

Joaquín Fernández Carvajal

thanks for the h/t guys! you rock :)

Brian Menius

Google is just trying to save the world. If December 21, 2012, doesn't exist, the world can't end. Right?

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Totally.

brutalpanther

If you know a secret way to contact google.Let them know they screwed up using nyko controller also.It will pair but never connects.And they are impossible to contact.Thanks

http://visionaforethought.wordpress.com/ Oflife

We're (my employer) working on a project of huge potential value to Google and find it almost impossible to contact them or form communications with their 'staff'. (Call their Mountain View HQ and compare to calling a regular company.) This is also why they may (may!) not be taken seriously by businesses who rely on data and device integrity. For all their flaws, companies like RIM and Apple do actually have socially competent people working for them and know how to dialog with their customers and partners/vendors. Soon as BB10 hits the market, Google will have to step up their game no matter what you think of RIM's chances.

DeadSOL

Cannot argue with this logic! :D

Keith Myers

Makes perfect sense!

GazaIan

Brilliant, brilliant comment.

http://www.omreddy.com/ Mahesh

superb comment

saimin

Pretty funny. I just got the 4.2 update for my Nexus 7 and it has this bug.

Cherokee4Life

see its "Bugs" like these that are kind of cool.

ac

If you tap in the month field and type 'D' then Dec appears so at least that's something. Poor form for Google to let something like that slip through the net though.

Guest

Yeah but then if you click into the day column it defaults to Jan.

http://www.facebook.com/michaelgonzalez2012 Michael Gonzalez

Don't you know that's when Android turns Skynet on? ><

http://twitter.com/Denniouslex Dennious

Believe it or Not ( Ripley ) That can Happen.

MrWicket

Mayan Calender? lol

Roin

I just checked my Galaxy Nexus and I have December so not sure what is going on here. Might be as easy as changing the date formatting to DD/MM/YY.

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Android 4.2?

Jays2Kings

My Verizon Galaxy Nexus on a AOSP 4.2 ROM doesn't have it either.

Roin

Yeah my Gnex is running 4.2. I am in New Zealand so have the date set to DD/MM/YYYY and I have December in the Calendar.

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

I think the code does some things differently based on the date format, so the bug is probably only present if it's in certain locales.

J.Carlos Navea

I've looked at the code and It doesn't seem to affect people whose locale have the months as numbers.

Roin

Screenshots

Roin

Man this site is buggy for posting. Wont upload the screenshots

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Is Disqus having trouble uploading? Try imgur.com, then post the links here if it doesn't work.

ewqaewqa

Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 both running Android 4.2 - have December. So...

http://twitter.com/IamPeePay Tomáš Petrík

In People/Contacts app?

ewqaewqa

Oh, thanks, now I see it.. My fault. There's no December! Also, Nexus 7 is now so laggy, that I almost can't scroll contact list. I hate Android 4.2.

This doesn't happen in the standard date picker (Any app, including calendar). This is a bug from the People app.

http://twitter.com/Denniouslex Dennious

Galaxy s 3 Running Official 4.2 have it.

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Galaxy S III has a stock People app?

http://twitter.com/Denniouslex Dennious

Srry is the Galaxy S2 i was confused.

Greg Bissell

There is no official 4.2 for sgs3 lol, they don't even have a true official 4.1.2 yet

http://twitter.com/Denniouslex Dennious

Lol i´m srry it was the galaxy s2 with custom rom, I manage lot of phone soo.

infogulch

I can confirm this on my GN running 4.2.

Davy Jones

I hate that date picker. They should follow the new clock app and just let you press the date. For that matter they should also let you long press days in monthly view to create events on them.

http://www.facebook.com/john.whitworth John Whitworth

This.

http://twitter.com/realnudel Meowski Catovitch

Amen. The dialog is modal which means it has the entire screen to itself, and they make us slide through numbers like we're entering a name into a 1980s arcade machine's high-score table. It's a completely idiotic UI that should've been re-done by now.

Aleksey

They tried to copy iOS when creating that date picker.

Donncha O Caoimh

Verified this on my Nexus 7 too. I had to "Add event". At first I thought it was Google Calendar was missing the month but this is a bug in a more obscure part of the system, thankfully!

Swapnil Chitnis

If Santa uses Android 4.2, he'll deliver the presents in January. If Santa uses iOS 6, he'll never be able to deliver the presents because the maps application will take him to outer space.

Kaboom Time

Could have been a bit more subtle..

QwietStorm

lol lost some of the humor when he got all specific

Aincalandorn

So close....

Alex

Windows Phone is his only choice then.

http://twitter.com/djstarion Francisco Rodriguez

Santa would be able to deliver on time if he had a Verizon Galaxy Nexus, cuz it won't get 4.2 until Easter.

Frank Tackitt

Posting from my AOSP 4.2 Verizon Galaxy Nexus

but yeah, fuck verizon's OTA cycle

smithj33

If Santa uses a HOX he'll run out of battery so maps won't matter.

Casey Artner

Try a different locale/language to make sure it wasn't somehow lopped off the enUS version?

Joaquín Fernández Carvajal

No luck. Same thing using spanish as the system language

Casey Artner

Dang, well, that should narrow it down a bit. Though I'm sure they have the tools/expertise to find it pretty quickly.

ithehappy

When I saw the GMaps was coming for iPhone 5, I commeneted 'shame on you Apple'. Now I reversing that.

Aaron Berlin

That's pretty funny. What's less funny is the so-choppy-it's-unusuable bluetooth I've been dealing with since 4.2 hit the N7. Is this a well-documented issue?

http://twitter.com/add119 adam

I dont have that issue

blunden

They did change to a new bluetooth stack co-developed with Broadcom so it could be related to that.

http://www.facebook.com/ostrowski.m Michał Ostrowski

Not having it as well, I've been using bluetooth to tether to my Desire Z for Internet access and everything was 100% fine...

That's hardly a problem. I can't turn bluetooth on at all after the update. Any word on that?

http://twitter.com/add119 adam

My nexus 7 runs fast on both 4.1 os and 4.2os someone trolling @ sami

Geek

lol, cool! < Why?

Google seems like a bunch of geeky guys sitting in a coffee shop and working on Android code. Then it's sent to the lab for design and refining.. I like that (the first part).. they probably didn't sent 4.2 to the lab as it's just code and they didn't need much of a designing skills xD

Abhijeet Mishra

Up until Matias Duarte joined the team, Google's Android team was just that: a bunch of geeks with zero idea of design and refinement. Even now the coding team is probably the same, but Duarte keeps them in check :P

ewqaewqa

Maybe, but not with 4.2. It feels like beta, and there's a lot of inconsistencies (clock app is soooo wrong, two notification bars in Nexus 7 confuses my family etc). I believe in Duarte, I really love his vision, but maybe he got lost.

Abhijeet Mishra

True, the clock app's design specially feels to funky and stylish and doesn't fit with the rest of the design of Android. He better not be taking the design towards a too offbeat one. That clock app seriously misfits the rest, it's extremely good looking, but doesn't gel.

Yeah, there does seem to be a problem with polish this time. Hopefully this is not part of the 2/3rds that was left according to Duarte in Android's polish and design :P

ewqaewqa

I'm getting sick of wainting for polish Android experience. I like Android, I really do, there' s no alternative for me, but making Android grown OS overwhelmed Google. I wait for Fx OS - I played with it last week and it's really promising.

Abhijeet Mishra

True. I hate the multitasking on it, which is incapable of running more than a few apps before it starts killing older ones (minimize game, open browser and browse a website, open an app like Google Now, and game gets killed, which is also dev's fault I guess), thanks to its high resource usage (Symbian and MeeGo can have 50-70 apps running in the background, including 2-3 HD games like NFS Shift) and hardware requirements (smooth only on a really good dual-core like Snapdragon S4). I love it, it's got some great features, but Google better be working at optimizing that silly virtual machine running underneath and just overall polish.
Looking at Jolla OS as an alternative, made by the team behind the awesome MeeGo. And I guess Firefox OS too, heard it's quite good.

ewqaewqa

I was impressed by smoothness - I saw Fx OS on videos as a laggy, slow, pre-alpha OS, but now on unnamed, chinese devices Fx OS is quite good. They foribidden recording, but, well, I recorded fast, crappy video:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLex3cqt9dQ

I think Jolla OS even if will be good, it will be niche. Sad:( I hate Nokia for killing MeeGo.

Abhijeet Mishra

Very true, I hate them too for that. Too bad we only have an OS right now that is so slow and demanding on resources, yet is the only one that gives us freedom and functionality. Though it can't reach how complete Symbian was, at least right now, in little things here and there.
Seriously hope Jolla, Firefox, or even Tizen work out well, though Google is making it hard to leave Android with the features it is adding. :P

It's going to end up just like Bada. New tech these days needs to have at least one compelling feature that people will notice, so the tech will not fade into obscurity fast... iOS had smoothness and ease of use, Android had openness and ability to cater to many different tastes. Firefox OS should have something like that, or otherwise... ;)

ewqaewqa

People are about Android's opennes? Something new:) Most of people don't know what open OS means:)

Fx Os has something - web standards and low price (and it's more open than Android have ever been). But I'm not evangelist, I just need something new, so we'll see:)

I don't think people actually care about web standards either... and the price? That market is already saturated by low-end chinese Android devices and featurephones. I'd also take a guess Android is pretty open right now - do FxOS devices don't use any binary blobs in their hardware drivers? I'd really like to see that happen.

http://ubuntu-su.blogspot.com/ Kleverson Royther

You can test Firefox OS inside a Firefox addon now... It's very good for a starting OS...

Justin W

This looks more like a forked version of android than a new OS.

ericl5112

I hope this was a troll post, or someone isn't sure how computers work. That, or hyperbole is their friend.

Abhijeet Mishra

I might not know much, but hey, that's what I've noticed. Good for you if you don't have a problem with it and love it. If this is how computers work, then I must be really silly :) Though someone can explain to me why Android is so slow on low-end hardware and so heavy on RAM.

ericl5112

If you think that's how Meego works, please show me the meego for with 2+ gb of ram. Even on native computing platforms, gaming takes more than 60mb of ram space. But you keep telling youself you are running 50 apps and 3 HD games on your phone. Maybe you can keep fooling yourself.

Define low end hardware? In the US, low end would be SGS2, which is crazy fast. In other parts of the world, low end is still Desire Z range. Yes, android isn't as fast on older phones due to the way certain things were written. That said, it's getting much faster. My SGS1 is so much faster with 4.0 than 2.1. Haven't put anything newer on it though, but 4.1 can only be faster still, right?

Abhijeet Mishra

Not exactly running in the background as in doing anything, but they'll resume where left off and also do background tasks if needed (no limitations like iOS), like Symbian has always done. Search 'meego multitasking' on YouTube. Both OS have true multitasking and extremely low memory footprint (true but short of running apps in multi window like a computer which is what some consider true multitasking).

And yes, Jelly Bean is smoother, but on lower end hardware like the SGS or the Nexus S it feels too heavy and struggles to keep up. Certainly more responsive than 4.0 (or rather faster response after a click) but not that better on such hardware.

Android is great, but its hardware requirements are quite higher than those OS, not just a bit higher. It seems to be running on an extremely unoptimized core, probably due to that VM and not running natively. I could be wrong, but it simply does feel unoptimized.

ericl5112

You're talking in circles. You say active multitasking, and describe non-active multitasking. Resuming where things left on is something every single high end mobile OS does. Android and iOS included. It's a simple save state. On android, which I've developed for, it's quite literally a few lines of code to determine what you want saved or not. If you don't care, android itself does a pretty good job of it.

Also, background tasks as you describe is very easy to do without an app running. Register an event listener or a task alarm, and you have a future background task without an app running. It's how things work on mobile, for the exact reason that we don't have huge amounts of ram. The situation you describe is simply not in existence. 2GB of ram is only now becoming a possibility for the high end. Even with that limitation leaving, we also have battery life to consider. Unless your meego phone dies in 3 hours or so.

Nobody is arguing that android is less well optimized for low end hardware, but it's certainly going that way. I'm hoping some of this makes sense. If not, I feed I'm talking to a fanboy, and won't be continuing this.

Abhijeet Mishra

Yes, it is making sense a bit. I'm guessing many devs don't seem to enable their apps to properly save their state? Some apps I notice resume quite well from where they left off, but some, specially games refuse to stay put in the background.
No, not a fanboy, just a bit tired of Android killing games and making apps load again too soon.

Abhijeet Mishra

And of course, so many apps being able to be paused or minimized to the background is a rare case scenario, but it's possible. I don't know if Meego or Symbian use some trickery to enable that, but it's true multitasking at its best, allowing whatever needs to be doing stuff in the background without causing battery drain as can happen on Android when apps go rogue (which is the fault of developers too of course).

ericl5112

Someone is confused about paging and memory allocation. Paging is what android does (and the only way meego can accomplish what you say). It saves the state to a dedicated file/partition on the drive. When apps go rogue on android, it's because they are abusing true multitasking. Saving the state is not true multitasking.

However, it sounds like you are drinking the kool-aide. Not much point in going farther. And no, I don't consider myself much of a kool-aide drinker. I use android and iOS daily, and included WP7.5 for a long time.

He just tried to follow iOS clock design with a Google twist (read: worse design choices)

http://twitter.com/andrewf Andrew

Two notifications bars confuse even me. I'm constantly forgeting to reach out for left part of the bar.

bos

I've never seen anything from Duarte that inspires confidence that Android is headed in the right direction on UI or UX. He seems like he'd fit right in at Apple, but Android deserves better than lost functionality and a few arbitrary and annoying UI changes spun as some huge UX improvement. Leave the iBSartistry out of Android, please.

Abhijeet Mishra

Yes, well, I'm not that big a fan of Android direction in design either, but before Duarte joined the team, Android was amazingly ugly, something which no average Joe would choose over iOS or even WP7 if he used each side by side with Android while shopping for a new smartphone. But now at least Android has a good design language, even if it's not fully polished.

Paul_Werner

Clearly we've been doing it wrong. Google just has corrected all of us

J

Working perfectly on Samsung GNexus with 4.2

Craig

Really? I find it laggy at times...

http://www.spoilertv.com DarkUFO

Very laggy with Multi-Users

ericl5112

Well, this is a good reason to extricate the People app from the phone and put it on the Play store. Why go through the whole OTA process for this?

Nick

You do realise built-in apps get updates from the Play store, right? You even get the option to "uninstall updates" to revert back to the version that's in the system area.

ericl5112

You do realize that this is true if the app is on the play store. For example, you never got calendar updates from the play store before it was published on the store. Same goes for the people app. Which, when you think about it, is exactly why I said this is a good reason to put the app on the play store so they could publish a quick and easy bug fix.

Marcus

They only can update gapps, not those that compile with aosp

squiddy20

You've got to be Nick (from above) using a different screen name. Up until a month or so ago, Calendar was complied in AOSP. Then, Google made the app available in the Play Store. It's no longer compiled with AOSP.
Further, Eric is saying that Google should make the People app available on the Play Store, just like they did recently with Calendar. How does no one get this?

ericl5112

That shouldn't be true. Changed can be pushed to AOSP, and when reaching a new version push it to the play store. I assumed that's what they did with the calendar in AOSP when it went into the play store. Squiddy says otherwise. If he's right, I hope that's temporary. There is no reason they can't be in both.

However, even if they can't be in both AOSP and the Play store for some reason, the Calendar shows that google is willing to make that transition.

Nevi_me

It's a catch 21. Yes, AOSP can be updated via play store but there are some complications to be considered. An app is married to its signature, future AOSP updates would have to take that into account unless Google moves the People app permanently to Play Store. That is not ideal.

The Calendar app was pushed to the store mainly for people who don't have the stock app. Why? Because Google is integrating everything, also updating API. I think it was easier to give people on the AOSP the choice to disable the system app and use the one on play store.

coversnails

There is one exception to the rule (though its a very pedantic one!) The Play Store app itself gets updated without being on the Play Store. Playception or whattwver you're supposed to say to make that meme work.

http://twitter.com/realnudel Meowski Catovitch

Even that process (which isn't used for many of the apps) is broken. The Play Store will still not detect updates to stock apps until you have installed at least one update via the Play Store. You have to seek them out manually the first time.

Savan

I just checked mine, it's missing.

Get it together

Android 4.2 is turning out to be the most half-assed update in Android history.

http://twitter.com/andrewf Andrew

True that. I like some new features, but 4.1 felt like polished product, and 4.2 is like good old Google: beta versions forever,

Protato

Honeycomb would like a word with you :)

Kyle Miller

December missing?! Forgot to carry the 1? Aahh!! I always miss some Monday detail.

http://twitter.com/andrewf Andrew

Strange notification panel behavior (you can pull out of the screen), Ugly flash on lock screen, when you turn on the device (to inform you, that you can swipe right for widgets, but do I need this every time?). Now this. I'm seriously considering flashing back 4.1.2 factory image on my N7.

steb0ne

Hmmm...just checked my Nexus 7 calendar and December is there?

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

For the 17th time, this is not a Calendar bug. It's a bug in the People app.

steb0ne

Hahahahahaha!!! I'm just messing with u homie! Good job!

Rudy Belova

December missing? You mean i don't have to visit my family for Christmas? Really?? THANKS GOOGLE!!! You so know me!

Kadeem Hunt

This is a opportunity for Google to push the people app to the play store update it and make it useful with actual social network integration

Simon Belmont

This is great! Android has single-handedly saved us from December 21, 2012.

The end of the world has been prevented. Rejoice!

http://www.androidpolice.com/ Artem Russakovskii

Google just acknowledged the issue.

Bloodflame87

I don't know what's funnier... the fact that December doesn't exist, or that it took 4 days for anyone to notice

Johnny

Nexus 4 same thing. Edit a contact and try to set their birthday.. no December!

santa

It's 42 not 4.2. Funny things happen around 42

TY

Seems to be a language specific problem. In languages where the month is simply displayed as numbers (e.g. Chinese, Japanese and Korean), December (displayed as "12") shows up fine.

http://twitter.com/dewadg Dewa DeeGee

Ohh, is it really a bug? I can't believe it

tnpapadakos

finally...i've been saying for years we should only do Christmas once every four years...like the Olympics

http://twitter.com/noneedtotweet noneedtotweet

i like google cuz they have the most stupid bugs, unlike apple, they have everything stupid that works perfectly, and the whole iOS is a bug XD

Arvinth

similarly, when camera app is opened from lock screen widgets and used thru landscape mode. Returning back to the home screen shows the landscape mode in home screen(though this changes within 2 secs).. This happens in my Galaxy nexus after 4.2 upgrade

Alain Lafond

December, hein, december... When is it?
True the bug is also on my Galaxy Nexus with the new 4.2...
Nobody's perfect.
After the Nexus 4 launch...
Now I'm sure that Google isn't perfect also...
ho-ho-ho

OK let's make the same zero coding error again, this time in the day of month data field. My Google calendar on my Nexus 7 is not only telling me that today is Mon Dec 26 ()

steve frahm

OK, lets make the same zero coding error again and this time do it in the day of month data field. Not only is my Nexus 7 running Android 4.2 telling me that today is Mon Dec 26 (Wed 26 Dec), but that December only has 30 days in it. So New Years Day 2013 falls on Sat 1 Jan and Dec 31 2012 does not exist!